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At its recent annual meeting in Boston, the International Communication Association named Professor James Dillard an ICA Fellow. "Fellow status in the INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION
ASSOCIATION is primarily a recognition of distinguished scholarly
contributions to the broad field of communication. The primary
consideration for nomination to Fellow status is a documented record of
scholarly achievement," according to the ICA announcement of the award.

"The Karl R. Wallace Memorial Award is given to foster and promote philosophical, historical, or critical scholarship in rhetoric and public discourse. Nominees should be NCA members who have completed the Ph.D. within the past ten years or who are well advanced in doctoral studies in rhetoric and public address. The recipient of the award will receive a plaque and a grant-in-aid from the Wallace Award Fund." (from the NCA web site)

The award is given in recognition of Jeremy's outstanding record of scholarship, and to support his current research project on "the politics of resentment."

On
April 26, 2011,
six CAS 100A (Effective Speech)
students competed in the bi-annual Civic Engagement Public Speaking
Contest. The event was held in the Nittany Lion Inn Boardroom.It was sponsored by the Department of
Communication Arts and Sciences, The Center for Democratic Deliberation, The New York Times, and Pearson Custom
Publishing. Each student delivered a
speech advocating a policy solution to a significant social problem.The speakers and their speech titles are
listed below.

Title: Social connectedness can inhibit disease transmission: Social
organization, cohesion, village context and infection risk in rural
Ecuador

Abstract: Social network analysis has become central to understanding
the spread of infectious diseases and behavioral risks for chronic
disease. Networks are typically seen as conduits for spread of disease
or risk factors thereof. However, social relationships also reduce
incidence of chronic disease, and potentially infectious diseases as
well. Seldom are these opposing effects considered simultaneously. We
show how and why diarrheal disease spreads more slowly to and within
rural Ecuadorian villages that are more remote from the area's
population center. Reduced contact with outside individuals partially
accounts for remote villages relatively lower prevalence of diarrheal
disease. But equally or more important is greater density of social
ties between individuals in remote communities, which facilitates
spread of individual and collective practices that reduce transmission
of diarrheal disease.

The Department of Communication Arts & Sciences, the New York Times, Pearson Custom Publishing Company, and the Center for Democratic Deliberation invite you to the spring 2011 Civic Engagement Public Speaking Contest. Six of the top speakers from CAS 100A -- Effective Speech -- will speak on issues of civic importance.

The event will take place at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 26, 2011, in the Nittany Lion Inn Boardroom. A reception will follow. The event is free and open to the public.

The
University Libraries will test a powerful new search function on March
21 that will allow users to find all library resources -- books,
articles, newspapers, databases and more -- from a single search box.
Called LionSearch, the new service is designed to mimic open Web search
methods. Entering a search term in LionSearch will return, nearly
instantaneously, a list of relevant physical and digital materials from
the Libraries' collections. LionSearch can be accessed from the
Libraries' homepage, www.libraries.psu.edu,
and will debut initially in beta mode. Students, faculty and other
users are encouraged to test the functionality of the service and leave
feedback.

Penn State is one of a handful of universities around
the world pioneering this service for their library collections. This
simple and fast way of retrieving information will enhance the research
process for students and unlock the wealth of resources available at
Penn State.

At the annual College of the Liberal Arts Awards Luncheon on April 6, 2011, Andy High won the Outstanding Teaching Award for Graduate Students. Here is the citation:

After demonstrating outstanding
teaching in our introductory public speaking course, CAS 100, Andy High was
chosen by the Department of Communication Arts & Sciences to re-design and
serve as the lecturer for CAS 283, "Communication and Information Technology."
He has taught the course for two years, consistently earning high praise from
students. CAS 283 is a large class, with six sections serving 180 students, for
which Andy has taken the primary responsibility as lecturer and leader. Andy
instituted a core innovation for the course with a major emphasis on Social
Informatics--the study of the social effects of communication and information
technology. Students come into advanced classes full of enthusiasm for what
they have learned from Andy High. In CAS 283 Andy lectures on computer
security, censorship, and online communities, and engages students actively in
learning how to use information technologies to gather, process, manage, and
share information. Andy inspires his students with a genuine love of learning,
helping them see the relevance of advanced communication research to everyday
life, and modeling the sort of engaged, committed, and informed academic
citizenship that he instills in his students. Andy High is an outstanding young
scholar and a model Penn State teacher.

Please
join us for the nineteenth annual Kenneth Burke Lecture, featuring
Bryan Garsten, Professor of Political Science at Yale. The event will
take place Saturday, April 16 at 7 pm at the Nittany Lion Inn's
Faculty-Staff Club. We will also spotlight the winner of the Kenneth
Burke Award for best graduate student essay in rhetoric, as well as the
graduate and undergraduate winners of the new Birkle Award for student
engagement. We hope to see you there!

Students completing their
first or second years of doctoral coursework in departments or schools of
communication, public health, or related fields are invited to apply to become a
short-term Cancer Communication Doctoral Fellow.Students interested in organizational and
team communication, patient-physician interaction and shared decision making,
intercultural communication, leader-member exchange, message tailoring, dissemination
and diffusion and implementation of effective practices, systems science, and social
ecological models of behavior change are especially encouraged to apply.

Over a three-day
immersion in Denver, fellows will learn
about plausible topics that a fellow could later pursue for study in cancer
communication research as it relates to healthcare organizations.The objective of this program is for fellows
to consider cancer communication topics as they plan their dissertation
research.This doctoral seminar is made
possible with funding from the U.S. National Cancer Institute in an award to
the Cancer Communication
Research Center
(http://www.crn-ccrc.org), an NCI-designated
Center of Excellence in
Cancer Communication Research.

Fellows will be paired with
and learn from seminar faculty about professional, regulatory, organizational,
team, and individual factors that affect communication in healthcare
organizations.Seminar faculty will be healthcare
providers, prevention specialists, information technology experts, operations
leaders, and researchers in Kaiser Permanente, the largest nonprofit
non-governmental healthcare system in the U.S.Fellows and faculty will interact one on one
in half-day shadowing as faculty go about their work, in seminar, and during
social times.The fellowship will pay
travel-related costs of fellows including round trip flight to Denver, 3 nights hotel,
and meals.Fellows will receive a $1000
honorarium for a brief paper describing a research opportunity from their paradigmatic
perspective based on what they have learned.

Wednesday
July 13th fellows and seminar staff convene for dinner, orientation
to the seminar, and assignment of fellows to faculty.Thursday July 14th fellows are
taken to their faculty colleague's place of work, fellows accompany faculty to
meetings, labs or clinics, offices, and any site visits that faculty have on
their schedule for that morning, fellows ask questions throughout shadowing and
have lunch with their faculty colleague, then fellows convene and with seminar
staff leave as a group for field trip.A
group dinner for fellows, staff, and faculty finishes the day.Friday July 15th fellows
report-out and discuss in full-day seminar what they have learned about
communication in healthcare systems and how that may apply to cancer
communication research.Saturday July 16th
fellows convene in morning seminar to discuss the fit of research paradigms to
the realities of healthcare organizations, and depart for the airport.

Apply by sending (1) a cover letter
of application with full contact information, (2) a letter of reference, (3) a
one page statement of interest that identifies the applicant's research
interests and what they would hope to learn, and (4) a vita.Materials must be received by May 1,
2011.Applicants will be notified by May
15.Submit application materials to: sarah.madrid@kp.org.